cross-posted on Newsvandal.com

Nowadays, it’s awfully expensive to get all your baggage onto an airliner.

Unless your name is Bush and the plane is Air Force One.

In fact, the mainstream media has a long history of bending over backwards to help handle the Bush family’s substantial pile of baggage. Like a team of personal skycaps, they’ve dutifully stored it in the deep, dark memory hole we call “the past.”

Perhaps that is why Jeb “the Smart One” Bush expressed the utmost confidence that, despite a rather disastrous eight years under Brother George, he wouldn’t be weighed down by the Bush name if or when he makes a run at the White House.

No doubt, Jeb is counting on the media to handle the baggage.

His brother slid right by the media’s security checkpoint in 2000. Drug abuse, de facto draft evasion, National Guard hi-jinx, connections to the Bin Laden family, unbelievable financial “luck” from a failed business, bogus education reform…you name it, the media glossed over it.

Nothing seemed to stick in 2004, either. The only carry-on allowed by the gatekeepers was George’s proclamation that he answered to a “higher father,” which wasn’t really considered “baggage” by his God-fearing base of support in Red State America.

But those were just George’s “personal belongings.”

The family’s brimming baggage cart didn’t impede his ascent, nor has it troubled those who came before him.

Long-serving Senator Prescott Bush suffered no ill-effects for his role in the Union Banking Corporation, which was hit by Henry Morgenthau in 1942 for violating the Trading with the Enemy Act.

His son, the weepy, genial patriarch of the Bush clan—GHW “Poppy” Bush—never seemed weighed down by his own long, strange trip through the Cold War. Poppy is the Whack-a-Mole of post-WWII fun and games. His name “pops up” in the Bay of Pigs, the United Fruit Company, the Kennedy assassination and the assassination of Orlando Letelier, Watergate, the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, a POW-MIA cover-up, the illegal arming of Saddam’s Iraq and, most telling of all, as CIA director for less than a year.

In 1988, “the Company” broke with its “do not confirm or deny” policy to vociferously deny Poppy was ever a spook. Oddly enough, CIA headquarters in Langley would eventually be re-named “The George Bush Center for Intelligence.”

No one questioned it. Go figure.

This is exactly why it made sense for Jeb Bush to begin his nascent run for president at the Reagan Library. Really, that “library” is America’s ultimate baggage carousel. We wait and wait for the hard truths and bitter realities of Reagan’s Presidency to pop up. But, like a bad airline experience, the carousel just spins and spins—and the baggage is never delivered.

Yet, people keep on buying tickets on “Air Ronnie.”

Like the re-naming of CIA headquarters, perhaps it is no accident that Washington, D.C.’s airport was re-christened “Ronald Reagan National Airport.”

Iran-Contra, the Savings and Loan Scandal, massive deficits, Central American death squads, the October Surprise, a racially-biased War on Drugs, homelessness, the AIDS crisis—all that baggage has been mostly lost down the memory hole. As time passes and memory fades, Reagan’s approval ratings soar above 70%.

Even Democrats feel the need to occasionally bow with approbation at the political prowess of the Great Gipper in the sky.

And many of Reagan’s more nefarious lieutenants—Elliott Abrams, John Negroponte, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle and a host of others—not only survived, but later thrived under Jeb’s brother.

As Jeb checks his “Bush baggage” in advance of 2016, the load must seem a bit lighter.

Already, his brother’s team is largely rehabilitated. Condi Rice is widely hailed as a rising star. Imagine her on a ticket with Jeb! Dick Cheney commands attention with little scrutiny. Most of Team Bush landed on their feet—in think tanks and onto corporate boards or in the media.

As we approach the 10^th anniversary of “the war formerly known as Iraq,” the media focuses more on Brother George painting 50 dogs than on the relentless suffering and carnage both he and, by extension, we all left behind in Iraq. Too bad he didn’t literally “paint 50 dogs.” The media might actually obsess on that story. They sure as shootin’ don’t want anything to do with covering the chaos and death playing out every single day in Iraq.

Here’s a news flash: America destroyed a country under false pretenses.

Sure, the “truth” is “finally out.” Nope, there weren’t any WMDs. And nope, Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. And yes, those troubling details are often treated as if they weren’t known until it was already too late. But too many asked too little as they eagerly “handled” the Administration’s press releases and left specious claims unchallenged.

Now, those mistakes are compounded daily as the mainstream media ignores the price paid by Iraqis and the toll yet to be exacted on future generations. Nor has the blatherati been bothered by the way Obama quickly said, “Move along, there is nothing to see here.”

The real baggage here—the heavy historical baggage—is not simply the few “personal belongings” left behind on Air Force One by George and his band of Neo-Con artists. Rather, it is an ongoing indictment of America as a nation. Something we will carry for a long, long time.

Like all wars of aggression, the nation that marches into folly behind a demagogue, a tyrant or a salesman must also be accountable. But in the case of Iraq, like Vietnam before it, the media, the political establishment and many Americans cannot wait to let the past fade like America’s signature on the Geneva Conventions.

So, keep this in mind when pundits and prognosticators discount the likelihood of another Bush presidency. If the last fifty years have proven anything, it’s that there is no amount of baggage that cannot be buried deep into the dark recesses of American history.

Just ask Henry Kissinger.

The great Lisa Derrick of La Figa likes to say that “nomenclature is destiny.”

That adage proved true once again, this time in the strange case of the four “best-paid” Congressional beneficiaries of the defense industry’s impressive political slush fund.

According to a recent article in AlterNet, four of the six largest recipients of Military-Industrial campaign donations are:

1. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA): $566,100 in 2012 cycle defense sector donations.

2. CW “Bill” Young (R-FL): $229,760 in 2012 cycle defense sector donations.

3. Charles Albert “Dutch” Ruppersberger III (D-MD): $229,550 in 2012 cycle defense sector donations.

4. Morris “Mo” Brooks (R-AL): $202,020 in 2012 cycle defense sector donations.

Seriously.

First of all, they all have nicknames. What are the odds? Is it a requirement to join the club…like a frat house initiation?

Secondly, all those nicknames  “add up” to a boatload of cash.

Finally, they all sit in key positions on the key committees and subcommittees that reallocate taxpayers’ dollars into the hands of defense contractors.

Yup, nomenclature is destiny:

Because the defense industry generously passes out the bucks to “Buck.”

“Bill” never met an authorization he didn’t like, nor has he refused those stacks of bills offered in exchange for his reliable compliance.

Dutch is one guy who never has to “go dutch” when it comes to financing his reelection.

And Mo gets mo’ and mo’ money with each passing election cycle.

Hello, America! Meet the sweethearts of the Military-Industrial Complex: Buck, Bill, Dutch & Mo!

These are the biggest, shiniest stars in the Empire’s greatest hit: Duck and Cover Soup!

It is currently opening in new “theaters” around the globe: in Niger, Mali and the Persian Gulf.

These are “limited engagements,” but rest assured that Duck and Cover Soup will open in more theaters, even if it doesn’t turn out to be a big hit in current screenings.

Of course, like any blockbuster franchise…future sequels are already in development. Sure, they keep remaking the same movie. Just like Hollywood, the Empire’s producers don’t really have any original ideas.

Alas, this is no laughing matter. America is more and more like a Marx Brothers’ movie every day.

The plot is absurd. Like Freedonia, our country is broke. But unlike the original Duck Soup, this current cast of characters ain’t very funny.

Frankly, we’d all be a lot better off with Groucho, Harpo, Chico &  Zeppo.

At least we could laugh all the way to The End.

(the Newsvandal)

Foreclosure

(cross-posted from Newsvandal.com)

Language matters.

And right now, we are in the midst of an epic word game.

The name of this game is “crisis.”

First it was the “Financial Crisis.” Now it is the “Foreclosure Crisis.”

But the word “crisis” doesn’t even begin to tell the story of what happened, or what continues to happen, in America’s maelstrom of financialization, debt-trading trickery and asset hoarding.

This is not a “crisis.” This is a “scandal.”

Understanding the difference between the two is essential:

• A crisis is organic—a mere byproduct of the business cycle and bad decisions.
• A scandal is man-made—a scheme concocted to produce specific outcomes.

• A crisis is hard to control—a natural process that must be managed as best we can.
• A scandal is hard to cover-up—a game of tactics designed to hide tracks and shirk blame.

• A crisis is just bad fortune.
• A scandal is a criminal act.

This “Great Recession” has been a scandal from day one.

It did not happen organically, nor was it just a matter of circumstance or the business cycle. It was a well-played game of slick mortgage salesmanship, cheap money lent, bad debt sold, insurance bets hedged and the whole system played like a golden harp.

The fact that so many reaped profits by betting against the market and their clients, thus making money on both the blowing and the popping of the bubble, belies the artful framing of the financial crash as a mere “crisis.” Both Wall Street and their cozy compadres in Washington worked hard to minimize the “scandal” and play up the “crisis.” To this day, the “asset hoarding” phase of this epic scandal is widely referred to as the “Foreclosure Crisis.”

This is where we need a stiff dose of American history.

Why? Because it happened before.

The Savings and Loan Crisis (1987-1994) became a “scandal” of epic proportions, ensnaring members of Congress, dropping the country into a nagging recession and leading to a massive bailout that eerily portended the coming of the Great Recession.

Back then, the initial crisis quickly turned into a scandal as the public witnessed scenes of pensioners lined up at rapidly collapsing “thrifts” and S&L “banks” in a mad scramble to withdraw what may or may not have been left of their life savings.

Back then, those scandalous S&Ls were not too big to fail or jail.

The how and why of the S&L mess reads like a playbook, one later employed by Wall Street wizards passing quietly through the revolving doors of successive presidencies.

It all started with Reagan Era deregulation and “tax reform.”

In 1982, he signed the Garn-St. Germain Act, which further removed the wall separating risk-taking S&Ls and traditional banking. At the signing ceremony Reagan even remarked, “All in all, I think we’ve hit the jackpot.”

Did they ever!

It stoked a go-go building boom, bad investments and wild speculation. During Clinton and then Bush, the end of Glass-Steagall, artificially low interest rates, artificially high returns and lax enforcement improved upon that model.

Then as now, the financial class targeted the wealth of the middle and working classes.

In the 1980s, people poured money into Certificates of Deposits, drawn in by interest rates that seem outlandish by today’s standards. From 1981 through to the beginning of the crisis, rates even spiked to over 17%. Mostly they fluctuated between 6% and 10%. The promise of big returns gave newly deregulated institutions tons of cash to play with. Like kids rolling the dice in Monopoly, they invested it wildly—houses, office buildings and office parks. Later, financiers used the 401k frenzy, reckless mortgage lending, another go-go housing boom and a massive flood of consumerized credit to separate middle and working class folks from their wealth.

Ultimately, it all crashes. All that speculation is inherently unsustainable. They learned that during the ’80s and leveraged it in the ’00s. As the market hits the ceiling, gamblers start hedging their bets and cashing in their chips. But they know the game is rigged. Political allies quickly plan easy escapes, funding bailouts that set the scene for the real killing—taking cash on hand, or put in their hands by bailouts, to go on a spending spree, buying up the assets they initially helped to build up, but at a massive, post-crash discount.

Back then, the government sold off “toxic” assets through the Resolution Trust Corporation. Sometimes the very people who issued the risky loans at the S&Ls simply turned around and gorged themselves in the post-crash feeding frenzy, buying up those defaulted-upon buildings, office parks and even office furniture for pennies on the dollar.

In some ways, the “asset hoarding” phase is the whole point.

Unlike today, bad press and scandal dogged many of the S&L’s big players, including the Where’s Waldo of hyper-connected hi-jinx—Neil Bush. And yes, some bankers even went to jail!

Obviously, the financial class learned from history, unlike so many of their victims.

Perhaps that’s why this time they’ve avoided the scandals, even as the “asset hoarding” phase continues unabated. Right now, private equity firms, investment funds, big bankers and speculators of all stripes are using the “Foreclosure Crisis” to gobble up cheap, vacant homes around the country. While Wall Street and corporate profits climb ever higher, a new class of mega-landlords is emerging from the rubble of the so-called crisis.

This Leona Helmsley Clone Army is on the march, often populated by the very people who made the “lending mistakes” in the first place. And why not? They made the money on the upside. Cashed in their hedge bets on the downside. And then got the poor sods known collectively as “the American Taxpayer” to lend them the cash they needed to speculate and merge like mad during the hyped-up misdirection of the “crisis.”

Forgetfulness is the mother’s milk of America’s version of the business cycle.

And the fact that they’ve successfully socialized the costs of this scheme by framing it as a collective “crisis” is the biggest scandal of all.
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The Great Sequester Hoo-Hah is upon us!

A quick rundown of stories I collected today reads like a dipstick plunged into the perpetual engine of wealth reallocation, which is exactly what the defense budget is, has been and will be so long as the Two-Party collaboration drapes its political fortunes with the flag.

>>There’s gold in them-thar overruns!

The F-35 anti-radar jet is seven years behind schedule. Project cost: $395.7 billion
http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2013-02-19/ten-giant-weapons-in-the-pentagon-s-shrinking-budget.html

Ships Leaking $37 Billion Reflect Eisenhower’s Warning
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-21/ships-leaking-37-billion-reflect-eisenhower-s-warning.html

>>Watchdogs bark and then nibble.

Lockheed agrees to $19.5 mln class-action accord: court papers
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/lockheed-settlement-idUSL1N0BK56D20130220

>>Don’t worry. Be happy (and modernized)!

Lockheed awarded F-22 modernization contract worth up to $6.9 bln
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/lockheed-f-idINL1N0BKDA820130220

>>No, really. We are running out of money.

Pentagon informs Congress of plans to furlough 800K civilian workers
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/operations/283981-pentagon-tells-congress-it-will-furlough-800k-civilian-workforce

U.S. Army Pressures Congress With State-by-State Effects of Sequestration
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130221/DEFREG02/302210007/U-S-Army-Pressures-Congress-State-by-State-Effects-Sequestration

>>Who wants to play a game of Chicken-Hawk?

Defense-Cut Hypocrisy Makes GOP Converge With Democrats
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-20/defense-cut-hypocrisy-makes-gop-converge-with-democrats.html

Meet 6 Politicians Getting Rich from America’s Endless Wars
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/meet-6-politicians-getting-rich-americas-endless-wars

>>Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

If No Deal is Struck, Four-in-Ten Say Let the Sequester Happen 
http://www.people-press.org/2013/02/21/if-no-deal-is-struck-four-in-ten-say-let-the-sequester-happen/

by The Newsvandal

Once again this year, the Westminster Dog Show attracted millions of viewers eager to see which dog will garner the bluest of ribbons.

JP Sottile argues that the Westminster Dog Show and the culture surrounding animal breeding create suffering in shelters.

Also once again this year, millions of discarded and unwanted dogs will be executed in overcrowded shelters, far away from the glaring lights of cable television.

Yes, “executed.”

Softened, palatable euphemisms like “put down” and “euthanized” serve only to assuage our guilt and placate our vanity. Even the term “destroyed” offers a clean escape. It depersonalizes the “destroyed” by implying it is just a thing, and not a being.

When we are talking about the staggering numbers killed annually, perhaps we must concoct semantic exit clauses, or else we risk facing the stark reality of our own complicity.

The Humane Society of the United States estimates 4 million dogs and cats are executed each year. It has to be an estimate because the numbers are so large, the process so widespread and the reporting so minimal. That works out to a dog or cat killed every 8 seconds. Of the approximately 6 million dogs and cats that enter shelters yearly, 60% of dogs and 70% of cats will be killed.

This is the dark side of animal breeding.

Meanwhile, the lights shine on breeders parading their prized “stock and trade” around the floor of Madison Square Garden. The eye is fooled, heart strings tugged and our vanity caressed. But complicity is the problem. The grinding machinery of death found at shelters around the country is inexorably linked to the vainglorious displays at the Westminster Dog Show, and at hundreds of lesser dog and cat shows held nationwide.

Those shows, and the breeders they help to sustain, condemn millions of unwanted dogs and cats to a short, distressed and ignominious stay in a crowed county or municipal lock-up before the gas or needle is finally administered.

For each specially bred dog and cat, sold for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars, another dog and cat is condemned. For each time a pet is purchased from the dog and cat breeding industries, that is a shelter pet’s hope quickly dashed — hope for a rescue and a family and, at long last, a home.

Read the rest of this entry →

Just when you were afraid to go back into the murky waters of HLN, the channel formerly known as Headline News comes through with an important story about the abusive practices of industrial farming and the bogus censorship laws corporations have secured from compliant state legislatures.

Take a look at the report: Farm abuse kept under cover?

That’s right, the home of Nancy Grace and “the true crime pulp novel as a two and a half minute segment” has tackled the corporate cover-up machine called the “Ag-Gag” law.

These anti-whistleblower laws have already been passed in Wyoming, Iowa and Utah, and Big Ag isn’t likely to stop there. Designed to keep animal welfare activists from surreptitiously filming the severe and intolerable abuses rife in the grinding, antibiotic-dependent practice called “factory farming,” these Ag-Gag laws have, in some cases, actually lumped activists into the category of “domestic terrorism.”

Seriously.

If you haven’t heard of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), you may be in for a bit of a shock. Passed in 2006, it broadly designates animal welfare activists as “terrorists” and is part of a much-ignored effort to protect Big Ag from big scrutiny by citizen activists.

These activists have been crucial in uncovering not only the painful abuse of beleaguered animals, but also the dangerously unhealthy conditions fostered by industrial farming and the long-term danger it poses to Americans who rely on it for food.

They’ve been responsible for a number of scandals, and even forced McDonald’s to change its purchasing practices.

But make no mistake, this is not just an animal welfare issue, this is a food safety issue. And with the FDA woefully understaffed, underfunded and under the thumb of corporate lobbyists, these intrepid whistleblowers are a last line of defense against the huge corporate farming combine that seeks only to harvest profits, no matter how bitter it tastes to the public at large.

So, let’s commend Jane Velez-Mitchell for covering an important story that has been thus far ignored by the mainstream media.

Pigs have flown, and we didn’t even have to wait for Monsanto to genetically engineer ‘em!

(cross-posted by the Newsvandal)
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Any turbulence in defense spending is merely a temporary dip.

This media spin on the “drop” in defense spending is bogus. And it reveals how most “reporters” don’t look beyond the press release they are handed.

Except for the irrepressible Brad Plumer, who wrote this in the WonkBlog:

Was this big plunge in defense spending unusual? Yes and no. To a certain extent, it’s part of a pattern: Defense spending often rises in the third quarter of a year and drops in the fourth quarter.

and

There’s a reason for this pattern. The fiscal year ends in September, and government agencies typically try to spend all the money Congress allotted them for that year by then — otherwise, they fear, they’ll get a smaller budget next time around.

and, from the great Larry Korb:

“In the Pentagon, you have to use it or lose it by the end of the fiscal year in September,” said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense now at the Center for American Progress, in a recent interview.

So, this will be spun as a reason to avoid the sequester and to make sure the economy doesn’t head back into severe recession…but it is really just a matter of accounting and a the pre-fiscal year spending spree that happens annually.

The annual fluctuation was sharper than usual, but don’t expect any real shift away from this post-WWII addiction to military Keynesianism. The Military-Industrial Complex is one of the most effective wealth reallocation systems ever devised, and this blip is just that…a blip.

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Today, CNBC debuted a new Wall Street soap opera — “As The Markets Turn.”

The show’s primary love triangle features mega-billionaire Carl Icahn, wannabe mega-billionaire and Vitalis hair model Bill Ackman, and a recently embattled “global nutrition and weight management company” — Herbalife.

The epic battle between Icahn and Ackman, rival investors who’ve spent a lot of time comparing the size of their offshore bank accounts, played out in real time on CNBC’s appropriately-titled stock market blah-blah-fest — Fast Money.

And also in real time, the value of Herbalife’s stock fluctuated based on the ebbs and flows of the on-air quarrel between two lovers of money:

Interestingly, Herbalife spiked as Icahn started speaking, despite the fact the billionaire investor has never revealed whether he has a position in the stock.  From 12:47 PM to about 12:56 PM, shares in Herbalife surged from $43.52 to $45.58.  Icahn was repeatedly asked about his position, but the activist investor avoided giving any response.

The stock slowly retreated from its highs, only to make its way back up; by 2:21 PM, Herbalife was trading up 3.5% to $44.78.

The producers at CNBC must’ve been beside themselves with glee as these money changers hurled insults back and forth, each one taking turns deriding the “capitalization manhood” of the other!

This was Wall Street’s Jerry Springer moment. Or, perhaps, this was more like Maury Povich. We are still waiting for the envelope to determine exactly who is the “father” of Herblife.

Stay tuned…although, we know that there is no love lost between Icahn and Ackman.

Icahn made that perfectly clear at the end of the on-air tussle when he said directly and forcefully to Ackman, “I wouldn’t invest with you if you were the last man on earth.”

In that one simple sentence,  Carl Icahn summed up exactly what the “investor class” has been up to since Glass-Steagall was removed and the ensuing orgy of financialization repeatedly rogered the working and middle classes.

The business of America is giving people “the business.”

(the newsvandal)

The marketing mavens at Coca-Cola must long for those halcyon days of yore when the simple act of drinking an ice-cold Coke occupied a spot in the Great American Pantheon—right next to mom, her apple pie and the Chevy in which you may have been conceived.

In 1980, the slogan was “Have a Coke and a Smile!”

The genial voice-over even claimed that “Coke adds life!”

Well, that was until sometime around 1984 when Coca-Cola finally dropped cane sugar in favor of the super-engineered super-sweetener—high fructose corn syrup.

Ever since, Coke has been subtracting life. People are sicker. Fast food is ubiquitous. Soft drinks are gigantic. And diabetes and obesity are now widely-considered to be epidemics.

But it is not just Coke. A tidal wave of processed foods and sugary drinks has flooded the American diet. This transition to a cheap, highly-processed “convenience-based” diet mirrored the rise of two-income families, a rise in “worker productivity” (meaning Americans work longer hours for less pay) and the industrialization of the food supply.

The American diet is now a mine-field of sickness, empty calories and chemical additives. And the number-crunching folks at Coca-Cola think this mine-field may blow-up in their faces.

How do we know that they know a backlash is brewing?

Titled “Coming Together” and brimming with implications, this new ad is a bit more of a “we-a culpa” than a “mea culpa.” Apparently, we have to “come together” to attack head-on the growing problem of America’s “growing problem”—the obesity epidemic.

Fair enough. Personal responsibility is a key component.

But so is high fructose corn syrup. It’s the key ingredient in Coke and, if you look at the label, almost every can of soup, box of cereal and, it seems, just about anything else found on supermarket shelves.

Although high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is increasingly linked to a panoply of illnesses, diseases and syndromes, it is notably absent from Coke’s pre-emptive strike against legal restrictions of its soda. Rather, they promise to reduce the portion size—the “Half a Coke and a Smile” campaign—and to concoct a menu of new and exciting sweetening technologies.

The trouble with artificial sweeteners is that they, too, have caused illness and even addiction. Seriously, how many people do you know who are functionally addicted to Diet Coke? Aspartame is a peppy little chemical, one that was denied FDA approval for years until pharmaceutical CEO Don Rumsfeld took advantage of connections in the new Reagan Administration to get it quickly okay’d.

Conspiracy-minded folks have good reason to be suspicious of Rumsfeld, particularly after his convenient Tami-Flu windfall during the Avian Flu scare of 2005. Some even believe the epic fail called “New Coke” was actually a bit of nifty subterfuge designed to hide the switch from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup.

The key element of these suspicions is high fructose corn syrup itself. When it comes to food ingredients, the longer the name of the ingredient, the more likely it is to be bad for you. Finally, after decades of public exposure to HFCS, scientists are starting to weigh in on the impact of Big Agribusiness’ favorite cash crop—one based on government-subsidized and predominantly-GMO corn.

High fructose corn syrup has, thus far, been linked to:

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What is happening in northern Africa?

Suddenly, we’ve got a war in Mali, “terrorist-jihadist-militant-one-eyed-something-or-others” in Algeria and the dreaded Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb threatening the entire region!

Question: When Leon Panetta talks, does anyone listen?

Why? Because Panetta knows exactly what is happening, according to an overlooked story from The Hill:

Panetta: ‘No question’ US counterterrorism campaign in Africa led to Mali conflict

Leon knows blowback!

“There’s no question, as you confront [Islamic extremists] in Yemen, in Somalia, in Libya, that they’re going to ultimately try to relocate. So, you know that certainly, I think, is a consequence,” Panetta said Monday.

Go figure.

Team Obama’s often-overlooked expansion of the War on Terrorism—in Yemen and Somalia, into Uganda, Kenya, Libya and various points around Africa—is actually inciting a response. Apparently, some people don’t like US troops, drones, advisers and weapons popping up in their backyard.

Perhaps coincidentally, the son of a Kenyan has taken full advantage of AFRICOM, which is the Africa-centric corollary to, among others, NORTHCOM (North America) and PACOM (the Pacific) and the candidly-named CENTCOM (yes, the Middle East is and has been the Pentagon’s “Central” Command).

AFRICOM was created right before Obama took office and it is growing in power and influence. Troops and trainers are currently “doing the continent,” and we can expect a lot more action in the months and years ahead.

Forget Iraq, with all those bombings and all that carnage US forces left behind. Africa is brimming with oil, rare earths, and mineral resources. And it features a patchwork of easily-corrupted governments. Can you say “Nigeria?” Shell and Chevron can, and have for years!

Forget Iraq. Africa is the new Iraq!

To that point, Panetta just threw down another gauntlet:

Panetta in London says terrorists will find ‘no refuge’

And so it goes.

Despite the all that doom and gloom about the impact of the dreaded sequester on defense contractors, there is good reason to believe that the War on Terrorism is still a growth industry.

Single-bid contracts will keep on coming, easily surpassing the $1.6 trillion issued since 2000. And Washington, D.C. will continue to be America’s lone recession-proof economy.

Alas, it’s funny how re-electing the new boss…sure seems a lot like re-electing the old boss.

by The Newsvandal